Rob’s Comments (group member since Jul 30, 2018)

Rob’s comments from the Miscellany Pages - Book Group with Variety - Expand Your Reading Horizons group.

I think the role of the narrator (Hugo) is very important. Without the digressions, I think Les Miserables would become just another sprawling melodrama like Count of Monte Cristo or Eugene Sue's The Mysteries of Paris. In fact when the first volume of Les Miserables was released, a French critic stated the plot and characters resembled Sue's novels and would be pretty much forgotten about in a few years. How wrong he was. Very few people know The Mysteries of Paris today but Les Miserables is a classic.

I wouldn't go as far as to say it is a 100% accurate description of Post Revolutionary France but it is the world according to Victor Hugo. In some ways Les Miserables represented everything Hugo believed in at that point. Sometimes the writing is odd, especially the Valjean dream sequence which has been the subject of more than a few essays.

I don't know if you have reached that point yet but the section "Tempest in a skull" is the best writing I have read from any novel.